If Isaac Ruled the World (Isaac & Rhys' guest post)

(click to enlarge any images) "Peas every day..."

feminism never accounted for homeownership

I recently walked down into the basement of our house for the first time since we bought it. Like most of what motivates me to attempt anything beyond sleep these days, it had to do with the baby. I needed to tell the guys installing insulation in our breezeway of a house that there was a baby asleep above them. I wanted to sound friendly in a threatening kind of way. It's an art.

For their part, two of the men were trying to convince the third, apparently a transplant from Puerto Rico, that it “wasn't that cold” on this particular day. I would have stayed to side with my compañero, but I don't linger in the basement of our house. The last time I spent any time in my little field stone salon was before I'd signed on the bottom line, when the house inspector was here taking notes on the boiler and shaking his head.

I left that meeting no more the wiser about boilers or anything else down there or in the rest of the house, for that matter. In short, I can't keep up. I have no idea why we need a roof vent or what the chimney in the storage room has to do with the water heater or whether or not our siding is grounded. Where Mike nodded authoritatively at the inspector's assessments of everything from the circuit breakers to the door locks, I tagged along behind occasionally saying things like “Could you repeat that?” as if I'd figure it out if I heard it again.

When Mike headed for the basement door the other day after the tub wouldn't drain mumbling something about “the trap,” I had a vague notion of what he meant, but well, not really, and certainly not enough to go into the basement and find this trap thing, just enough to know it was a crummy job and I was glad I wasn't doing it. I leaned in to him and hooked my arm in his. “Oh, honey! I crooned with mock glee bending one leg at the knee, “We're homeowners!!”

I feel like buying a house has been a major assault to my feminist identity, on the off-chance that any of it was left in the first place. Mike plans projects like installing ceiling fans and dimmer switches while I think about table runners. When I question whether he might electrocute himself while ticking off his to do list, he offers reassurances that only reinforce the divide between us.

“I took classes in electricity stuff in high school,” he shrugs, the confidence pooling at the corners of his mouth like cookie crumbs.

I look over at my husband and blink methodically. “I took Home Ec. where I learned how to sew a bean bag frog. I'm so glad we were equally prepared for the world.” And here I was thinking I'd been super lucky – the semester after ours the class had gotten into a huge rice fight and from then on everyone had to stuff their frogs with boring soft filling.

We never had to carry eggs around to warn us away from parenting, like in some schools, but no egg could have prepared me for the social train wreck that follows giving birth in this country. Since I will never ever learn, Rhys and I stopped in to a couple of parents' groups this past week. At one, where kids of different ages mingled in two huge rooms of complete chaos, a leader gushed to me about how many places you could put your baby down here. Yeah, I thought, if you want him to get a fungus. Another mom revealed to me in casual conversation that she started coming for what she referred to as her “sanity.” Toddlers on tricycles zoomed by us in some kind of pre-school rush hour, somewhere in the distance children were fighting over doll blankets. “I'm not sure this is sanity,” I responded, causing her to curl her lip every so slightly.

At another circle, we were meant to talk about the question of “identity” and what may have happened to ours since having kids. When it's my turn, my five-month-old is cranky and tired, refusing the boob I'm pushing into his face as I'm passed the “talking stone.” Over his crying I blurt out a few bitter-sounding things about the hospital and the snow. “May I offer a brief the reflection?” the overcareful, over-educated facilitator asks me when I'm done. “No,” I tell her and pack my things to go.

Can I tell you that Isaac is currently studying gender bias, by the way? First grade. I can only imagine what I was studying in the first grade. Jump rope songs and choosing games, I think. My mother and your mother were hanging up the clothes. My mother socked your mother right smack in the nose. What color was the blood? Green. G-R-E-E-N. You're it! I wonder if studying something changes it. Or are we all just trapped in a fish tank – blue fins fiddling with gears, pink fins applying lipstick – to be watched with interest by our children?

coastal comparisons

A biased, abridged list of the differences between California, where we currently reside, and Massachusetts, where we may possibly move...

Current Weather:

(central coast of) CA – 70 degrees and sunny. MA – nowhere left to put the snow

Native Heritage:

CA – usurps the names of Native Americans for spa and resort facilities. MA – usurps the names of Native Americans for highways

Town Names:

CA – typing random CA towns into Google may bring results including Beach Boys' lyrics. MA – typing random MA towns into Google may bring results including Puritan England

Driving:

CA – known for the rolling stop, tagged the “Hollywood stop” in Northern CA. MA – known for completely f-ed up intersections that were paved sometime slightly after the Mayflower landed.

Politics:

CA – liberal lipservice done in every time by Orange County. MA – Gay marriage legal.

Housing:

CA – just because it's bank-owned, doesn't mean you shouldn't pay half a million for it. MA – affordable housing options

Money:

CA – largest deficit of any state, but thank god we've cut the car tax and filled the prisons. MA – also in debt, yet their residents enjoy the anomaly of health insurance.

Food:

CA – Awesome Mexican food on every block. MA - ---

The pro/con list has long failed to fit the bill when it comes to decision-making.

birthday as cultural commentary

Isaac's birthday will be here in less than a month. He really wants a party. To date, I have managed to avoid any controversy or heartache over his lack of parties. Of course, it's not that we haven't celebrated.

When he turned one we had just moved and had a combination house-warming, bring your one-year-old over too kind of day.

When he turned two, we had – eh-hem – just moved again and served the friends that helped us some carrot cake with a candle on it.

At three, we tried a very small at home thing where a couple kids and Isaac dug in dry beans to find bouncy balls and took home seeds in clay pots instead of goodie bags.

Four was the new adventure of roller skating topped off with some ice cream and shared with our friends' twin girls.

I billed five as his big family/snow birthday, two things he doesn't usually experience. We spent that one at his grandparents' house in Massachusetts where grandma made him a strawberry topped cake to order and his cousins pulled him around the ice outside on an inflatable tire.

All in all, not bad, I'd say. And now we approach six. I thought I had this one in the bag – six is the year they are allowed to do behind-the-scenes tours at the aquarium. I mean, dude. Pick a friend, hit the tanks, twenty bucks later call it a birthday. Only problem is, it's not flying.

You must understand, I am contending with the insidiousness of things like the pony party, the bounce house blow out, and what I call the “drag net birthday” - invitations handed out to every flipping kid in the class before their parents even get a say, invite ev-er-y-one, doesn't matter what you think of them, what they mean to you, collect your present and eat your cake, too – which undoubtedly has been bought from Costco and contains five-inch thick day-glow green icing, and then send them home with gender specific goodie bags filled with plastic dollar store crap and candy.

Truth be told, I keep Isaac home from every birthday party I possibly can. I'm a proud evil mom. And he still goes to plenty...with Mike. I have no tolerance whatsoever for these fiestas or the idle chit chat that circulates among the parents during same.

The other day Isaac had in hand his second invitation in a week. There would be ponies. There would be lunch (MAJOR red flag – Capri Suns and pizza if you get off easy. Or else burgers and hot dogs your veggie kid can't eat at all served with Hot Cheetos and soda. It's like a psychedelic trip down the river of processed foods brought to you by your guide and companion: high fructose corn syrup.). We planned a family day and told the birthday boy's mom we'd be out of town. That Friday, the family brought cupcakes to school and the ponies were all the buzz. “I wanna go to Duncan's party!” came my boy's well-practiced whine.

The morning of the grand event our plans had shifted and I could no longer be a part of the family day. Isaac hadn't mentioned the party since his token whine, but Mike and I were careful not to let it get past the time of the soiree without directly addressing the fact that we wouldn't be there, lest it prove meltdown material later. We reminded him that we'd already told Duncan's family we couldn't make it and that maybe he could do something really special with Daddy that day. He was quiet for a minute, then he asked Mike to play “ice cream truck” with him (You have to walk up to the windows of the car as different customers and order.). No mention of ponies. Nothing. They went on to have a day involving a hike and homemade cookies.

When I think about this little incident, it's not unlike the triumphant feeling I had over the holidays when, killing time during intermission at a concert, Isaac sat oblivious to the two young boys in the row in front of us playing games on their parents' iphones while our family played several rollicking rounds of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Look, I've got nothing against ponies or iphones, not exactly... It's just, well, those birthdays? They'll fly by faster than we're ready to admit. We live in a complicated world. Why drag our kids into it before we have to? Let's skip the bounce houses and ponies and let them take it one birthday at a time, with their feet firmly on the ground.

more audio: When a Teacher Goes to Jail

Okay, so here's my first attempt at a produced piece using the Audacity editing program. My friend, writer and teacher Paul Karrer, had a story to tell and so we recorded it and I put it here. You might want to give it a listen. And, hey, times are such that you might was to "share it" around. (It is also on my sidebar under Cool Stuff/Me Stuff.) Thanks.

And if anyone is an expert on Audacity, for godssake write me and give me all your tips.

school search - part VI

There is a hair cutting school in my neighborhood where you can get walk-in five-dollar cuts. It's a good deal, if students with scissors don't make you too nervous and if you have some extra time (cuz these cats are trying to get it right...). I took Isaac there to get the hair off his ears and out of his eyes.

While waiting in the reception area, the young man who would be our hair dresser for the day approached and introduced himself. Before he could lead us to the hair chair, however, a woman stopped him to ask for his urgent help. The dryer her mother was sitting under was too hot and was beginning to scorch her scalp. The man turned down the heat dial and confirmed with the customer that the new temperature was good for her. Before leaving them, he addressed the daughter. “If it heats up too much again, just turn this dial to a lower number,” he said, pointing out the huge white markings on the chair's controls affixed in plain sight. “Oh,” replied the woman, as if this were new and strange technology she wouldn't dare have thought to tamper with. “Okay.”

Now, nothin for nothin people, and with all due respect for the 10 months these hair folks spend studying how to give perms and fool your friends with extensions, did that woman seriously not think it was within her own power to turn down the heat? Did she never investigate? Did the mother never consider removing her head from the assaulting burn? Are we so helpless as a species? Such obedient sheep to follow along until we are in physical danger or worse? Such rule followers as to be completely out of touch with our own instincts?

I have two major concerns about public schools and they have nothing to do with academics. The first is demonstrated above. We think that “discipline” issues are bad in schools, but consider this blog to weigh in on the problem of obedience, the lost art of free thinking.

So, Isaac gets his booster seat and settles in for an hour-long cut. (Don't try this at home folks!) The poor thing was having to pull out every little bit of hard-earned Montessori concentration to sit there in the chair. I wasn't any less fidgety since I was pretty certain I was going to die of bad pop music while there and kept swiveling this way and that hoping to find the radio switch to smash.

Of course, we did have plenty of time for conversation, the young man and I at least, since Isaac was refusing to speak. During that time I made sure to point out to my son his hair dresser's Barbie pink fingernails.

Isaac has been very influenced by a couple friends, who don't even live in the area anymore, but whose rigid ideas of gender they managed to pass on quite successfully on some level to my son.

(“I'm not going to have an earring when I grow up. I'm going to be a real boy!” he once said to me. Images of Pinocchio in a sterling earcuff float through my mind. WTF??)

I learned that hair dresser guy, had a Halloween party for his birthday every year, since it fell at the end of October and that this year he was going to be a pirate. I also learned that he was graduating next month. And finally, I learned that he was born and raised in Salinas, which caused me to have to stop myself from grabbing his arm, the one with the black rubber bracelet that said “Vanity,” and blurting out, “Oh my god! That must have been terrible for you!” Salinas, California, known as it is for its associations with Steinbeck, big agriculture, and gang violence, isn't quite as note-worthy in its general ideas of tolerance.

Which brings me to problem number two in the public schools: a lack of emphasis on compassionate social interaction and integration.

I mean, let's face it people. We are at war. What do we have to teach our kids about empathy or cooperation? Gee, can't imagine why bullying is a problem...

I'm planning on going as my worst nightmare for Halloween this year: a soccer mom. “Are you gonna scream a lot?” my friend asked me, “Because you need to scream a lot.” (Capri Sun, anyone? Pictures to follow.) While I went searching for a blonde bob wig in the drug store the other day to round out my costume, my gentle, loving son battled an invisible victim with a bloody plastic hatchet, behavior I find all the more disturbing since the kid's only ever watched a few hours of television in his life and most of that consisted of Dinosaur Train and the Olympics. You might find it odd that I connect fumbling foreign policies, youth sports teams, dumby weaponry and the absence of kindness, and if so, then, I still have more convincing to do. Later. Just how I like to think about where to send Isaac to school next year. Later.

whales and such (Yoo Hooo! Monterey Bay Aquar-i-um...)

 Isaac this past July on a whale watching trip in the Monterey Bay

My friend Kate (geez, I have the coolest friends) has an article in the new Monterey County Weekly about whale watching in our bay this summer, which has been fantastically stellar (modify superlatives? why yes, I think I will, thank you.).

In one paragraph, Kate states, "Connecting with nature is the best way to inspire children to grow up committed to conservation, according to educator David Sobel, author of Beyond Ecophobia: Reclaiming the Heart in Nature Education. It’s crucial to give children a chance to build a lasting, nourishing love of the wild before they are burdened with worries about overwhelming environmental problems. Observing nature can also help lengthen attention spans and combat digital addiction." (emphasis mine)

Back in April of this year I wrote a couple pieces about my feelings on the new exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and how I thought they missed the mark for kids, making much the same point Kate does. Jenny Sayre Ramberg of the Aquarium picked up the blog piece right away, and we proceeded to have an interesting discussion within the comments. I also wrote a follow-up blog on the subject. That is as far as I got at the time. Until now.

Besides Kate's article which gave me renewed interest and vigor in the subject, I am rather concerned about what might be happening as the MBA takes down the beloved Outer Bay tank for the next 10 months to revamp it into the "Open Sea" exhibit coming in July 2011. First, let me say that the Outer Bay is/was a classic. In place since 1996, it is an enormous wall of glass where you can watch from ground level or sit upstairs in the dark and take in hammerheads, tuna, rays, and an amazing array of amazing creatures go on by. The balcony seats are the best in the house, in my opinion. I've been taking Isaac there since he was 3 months old. The beauty is unmatched, but more, the serenity is untouchable.

With the new and "improved" exhibit, they promise to address climate change and plastics pollution, as "as always" point to positive solutions. So my question again is HOW will that happen? In what FORM and in what ORDER at EYE LEVEL will these things come at us? I am also not comforted by the dangling carrot of more "multi-media experiences." Again, in my past discussion of this topic, I stated that I thought the screens were being a little too heavily relied on and upstaging the animals themselves. I don't want to play a game about a sea turtle, I want to watch one swim by. I don't want to be sucked in (and have my child sucked in) to a video of the sunfish, when -- if the tourists would quick flashing their bloody cameras for a second -- one might swim by in the flesh.

My aquarium renewal notice just arrived in the mail...I'm no Julie Packard when it comes to my ability to financially support this resource, but still. I need to know how my money will be spent.

Jenny, I think I will have to belatedly take up your offer to give you a ring at the aquarium. Hope to talk to you soon.

War, Letters, Love

Pictured: Heath Proskin, Bill Minor, Richard Mayer.
Photo Credit: David Hall., Monterey Herald.

There is a project I've been a part of for a while called "Love Letters of Lynchburg" that is truly unique and interesting on many levels. Yesterday, we did a performance - a CD release party - that was a reading of love letters between two people from during the Civil War, backed by a live trio on an original score. All of it orchestrated by the charming and extraordinary Bill Minor, who happens to be distantly related to the two wartime lovers. Here is a link to an article about the performance that gives a little more background. I'm tempted just to copy and paste the article, since I'm not sure how long the link will be good for, but anyhoo...

It was one of those times when you realize late on the significance of what you're doing. Bill asked me to read the letters of Susan Leigh Blackford, essentially to be Susan, and I wouldn't think of saying no to Bill. Along the journey, I learned how fascinating she was, the time was, the relationship she had was, and yesterday, how much our merry little band could touch people with the story. As one person noted in thanking us, the exchange was plain and simple an anti-war statement, nevermind from a war none of us can remember or even imagine.

I want to refer back to two poems, of mine and of Ruth Fainlight - from which mine takes its architecture - that I posted on this blog two years ago. Fainlight's poem in fact speaks specifically of wartime letters again.

How much do you use pen and paper anymore? Do you? What can it change to see personal communication become electronic? What does each do to shape the time we're in? How do we participate in that shaping?

stasis and movement in the summer of 2010

The following might be an odd pairing of topics. Welcome to my world. These days I am jolted between everyday stuff and tragic memories, between the joy of a five-year-old who just won't stop learning and the enveloping worry that tugs at me when I think he might not remember his grandmom. So let's just get started.

How do you define peace?

There are people in my life that think of peace as a state of stillness – not necessarily equilibrium, just mostly quiet. A place where no one is rocking the boat. I see peace differently, as something that must be worked toward, as something in motion and sometimes thorny. I see authenticity as essential to it, and I believe that when authenticity or fairness is violated, one must speak out, and, contrary to what some would believe, I never do this lightly.

Peace is not a static place. Peace is a collaboration, an exploration.

In March of 2003, when the world showed up to protest the imminent invasion of Iraq by the United States, Mike and I went to San Francisco to join in. We did not stand, flatly in one place, we walked, all of us, washing down the streets of the city.

Now, if what you are interested in is a static place, you are in luck, there is such a place. A place where nothing changes, ever. I'm talking, of course, about the boardwalk. Any boardwalk, take your pick, as long as it has funnel cake and men trying to swish a basketball through a hoop to win a giant stuffed smiling banana for some chick in short shorts and MC Hammer blaring from the speakers and people screaming as they dive however many stories in a rickety car down a track and people displaying tattoos on all kinds of body parts and skeeball, there must be skeeball.

And the truth is that I'd give a lot if more of life were like the boardwalk - unchangeable. Peace? Sure! Peace need only show up and it would take its place next to Love and Friendship and all the other immutables in line for the Tilt-a-Whirl. It's just that that kind of Peace sometimes makes you throw up.

 

spiders and the spill

The Spruce-fir moss spider, its tiny two-part body stretching only four millimeters, a little longer than your thumb nail, is disappearing from the Appalachian Mountains. You may wonder how I know this about our dear eight-legged friends. It has to do with dull-eyed college students and Wikipedia and poem writing prompts. Their cousins – the spiders, not the dull-eyed students – who populate my clothesline are much bigger, their numbers apparently flourishing. Rather than comparing them to the length of your thumb nail, the ones that chill in my hood are closer to the width, length and girth of your thumb.

Spiders rule the territory around here. And there are many more of them than us, so I accept that they are just part of the deal. I have nothing against spiders. Sure, I held a small grudge against the black widow that I carried inadvertently to Isaac's preschool on the bottom of his dump truck to co-mingle with a dozen three-, four-and five-year-olds, but other than that, me and the spiders are good. Solid. Some of them, the light green ones that like to hang out on the underside of my kale leaves, for example, I've had quite involved conversations with. Things that go along something like, “Look, dude, either you get these aphids or I will. Now, I don't want to steal your thunder or anything, but step it up! Have you got the appetite it takes to live in my garden or not?”

It's frustrating, trying to help these creatures. Typical morning in my house: “Mommy! There's another one on the wall in the hallway!” I drop what I'm doing for the latest spider rescue. It's a huge black one and fast. I grab Isaac's latest addition and subtraction work from school – the booklet with his name on the cover colored just so, the one he is so proud of – and slap it down in front of the beast as it races for under the computer hutch. I stop it, but not before I crack my head into the corner of the hutch.

Ungrateful bugs always wait until I've almost got them out the door, then they try the daring James Bond escape down their silky threads.

Isaac has always been prone to bites – bug bites of whatever kind. And especially in the winter here when no major flying, biting insects are generally hanging out, when my son gets up in the morning covered in itchy bites, I suspect spiders. I brought this up to our pediatrician, however, and he informed me that there are only a small percentage of spiders that can break the skin of a human. Fine. Facts always get in the way, don't they?

One of my students' (the dull-eyed ones) favorite pieces that we read in the environmental writing class was about spiders (the eight-eyed ones). It was David Quammen's “The Face of a Spider” from Flight of the Iguana: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature. In it, the author debates just how humans are meant to behave toward members of other species. In fact, he brings up the question over and over again in just this way --”How should a human behave toward the members of other living species?” Quammen is faced with 100 black widow hatchlings swarming his desk in Tuscon, Arizona. The essay is humorous and down to earth, and though he is reflective and somewhat remorseful, he ends up killing the itty-bitty babies with a can of Raid.

The question that comes up for me is a little different than Quammen's: When did it happen that we came to believe we were so very much more important than anything else that lives here? The subjugation of the planet to our way of life has proven oh so charming. Birds are covered in oil. Sealife we don't even know the names of are dead. And on and on it goes. I can no longer listen. But it hasn't stopped the weeping. Or the desire to burn my car and never look back.

Unless each of us can think our way through the tiniest, daily, individual encounters with other species and decide what truly we can do for ourselves and our partners in this dance, then we're doomed. But first we'd have to have tiny, daily, individual encounters. I think all the BP officials should be sentenced to a life of gardening.

One more fact about that Spruce-fir moss spider: endangered as it is, it spins a web not to catch prey, but only for shelter.

more on that aquarium exhibit and beyond

I'll admit that I did not view the new exhibit very carefully this first time around. It was busy, and my guardedness around what Isaac might take in led me to steer more quickly through it than I otherwise might have. I'm also not in favor of the aquarium saying nothing on hard truths and thorny topics. But I am still troubled. It's kind of a “first do no harm” kind of issue.

Maybe it's a matter of what is presented in which form and in which order that needs review when we're thinking about serving a variety of ages and abilities to process this information. There may be, as the website quote I included in the last post suggests, lots more positive change stories enveloped in this new exhibit than were obvious to me. However, if they are mainly textual, that is not – even with a mama reading along – what my young child is going to take away from the experience.

There are all kinds of learners out there. But I'm going out on a limb here to say that a majority in our society might fall into the categories of visual and experiential. What you see and what you experience make the biggest, earliest impressions.

The same might be true for my college-age students. I critique the aquarium's exhibit, not from a place of knowledge, but from one of struggle. I battled how to present information for 15 weeks during my fall “environmental writing class.” For these kids, the dictate of the day is “save the planet.” And, believe me, they are over it. Yawn. Apathy is the top layer of all those other potentially negative outcomes like fear, hopelessness, etc. With the readings I required, it was a constant push/pull on looking for hard-hitting information and looking for uplifting outcomes. I can't be sure that any of it made any huge impression. But then there were the other assignments. The ones outside of the books.

I have a lot of doubts about teaching. A lot. Doubts that surface when I think about doing it, while I'm doing it, after I get my student evaluations, doing it in combination with real life lessons, in settings where grading becomes the salient carrot on the proverbial stick. I could go on. But I know a few things for certain that are good, solidly good stuff, the stuff they might even remember for years to come and that wouldn't have happened without the environment writing class we created together.

Things like two of my students touring Jeffers' Tor House guided by one of the most passionate, endearing local poets I know, who generously gave of his time to touch their lives. Like one of my students who wrote past her language issues and into a piece about a life-changing encounter with dolphins in a way that was so moving it brought both of us to tears. Like students using the “idle time” assignment to sit quietly and discover for the first time places and their own thoughts they'd rushed past for months. Like the students that found the thrill and vitality behind reading their own work aloud into a microphone for an eager crowd.

I know these things were good mostly because the students told me so. In weak moments, even these pierced angels of cynicism can admit when they've experienced something that has entered their hearts.

One day, I had made my class read excerpts from Edward Abbey and Bill Bryson on the same night. This was, one: curious because of their screamingly different approaches to writing, and two: dreadfully mean (according to my students) because they were each rather long passages.

One of my students, in discussing Abbey out there on his own among the rocks and coyotes, and Bryson with his page after page dedicated to his fear of bears along the Appalachian Trail, brought up the fact that nature for her is just downright “scary.”

“Pretty hard to save something you're afraid of, huh?” I tried. A stillness dipped into the room for a moment, a just-perceptible beat of quiet. The girl under direct address nodded slowly.

I would argue the same goes for climate change. If we are in a state of fear, we are much less likely to be able to do something about it. Far be it from me to argue for the All-American happy ending. Honesty is a bad habit of mine, truly. But it does seem like taking another look at “cheery” messages, might be worth our while.

Why I feel the Monterey Bay Aquarium's new exhibit is damaging to children and, consequently, their mission of ocean conservation

Isaac could hardly wait to see the flamingos. In the world of animal cool, tall pink birds standing on one leg are solidly in the range of “very” for my boy.

And there they were. A couple anyway, visible on occasion over the heads of the spring break crowd. And a couple of spoonbills – equally cool. And a scarlet ibis or two. The rosy feathers of them all announcing the nature's proclamation on fashion – gaudy is IN.

I didn't point out to him the water mark painted on the glass denoting the predicted water level in the near distant future that towered well over the noisy group gathered to capture these birds on their iphones.

Then there was the graveyard. An animated video spoke about the calamitous fates of various sea creatures while all around it were “tomb stones” etched with names like “sea anemone,” as if we'd accidentally wandered into a suburban Halloween display.

Isaac stood staring at the short loop of a wall-sized film about the domino disasters surrounding the lifestyle of the Inuit people and their natural resources three times through and would have stayed for goddess knows how much longer if I hadn't pulled him away. “Did you understand that?” I queried. “No.” he told me, and I did my best to fill in a few elements I felt comfortable enough explaining.

There were also some penguins. Isaac took note, but he can visit the ones on permanent exhibit upstairs most any time. There was the cow with the gas mask and the note about biofuel - relatively amusing and positive.

More screens flashed at us and pronouncements of doom writ large (literally) along the narrow passageways before we got to the two sea turtles swimming back and forth in an unadorned tank and Isaac whined that he was hungry.

Here is how the aquarium's webpage bills their newest exhibit which they've titled “Hot Pink Flamingo”: “Amazing animals will capture your heart in our new 7,000-foot special exhibition. Take a trip through our galleries—and across the globe—and discover how climate change is affecting ocean life. Along the way, you'll meet people and communities who are reducing their carbon pollution, and learn about the small changes we can all make to help the oceans.”

Hmm. Did we see the same thing? Cuz what I experienced had little to do with flamingos, or capturing anyone's heart. We've determined that I'm not against things political. Yet, when I view this from the perspective of a five-year-old, as best I can, I see the potential for instilling fear, confusion, hopelessness, resignation. Come to think of it, when I look at it from the perspective of a 40-year-old, I see potential for instilling, let's see, fear, confusion, hopelessness, resignation...

My son needs to fall madly in love with flamingos. Period. Step one in his generation saving anything. He's five. He does not need messages about drowning polar bears just yet. He can't do anything about it. And what he can do, believe me, he does. I have picked up more nasty garbage because my son has guilted me into it than I care to remember right now.

I feel strongly that the beloved world-class aquarium in our backyard as slipped off the track on this one.

So what is the solution? PG-13 aquarium exhibits? I don't think so. But I feel like before we can solve our planet's problems, we have to get together on how to talk about this.

I have more to say on the college-aged perspective after teaching “environmental creative writing” last semester, but, for now, enough. To be continued...?

political motherhood

“Look around—there's only one thing of danger for you here—poetry.” - Pablo Neruda to the armed forces searching his house after Pinochet's military coup in 1973.

So I recently added myself to The Mom Blogs directory – icon & link at the bottom of the sidebar. I'd like more traffic here. I'm experimenting. One must do that now and again, it seems, experiment, though one is mistrustful of groups and highly mistrustful of groups that involve parenting.

You are invited to include your blog in up to three categories. In theory, this seems pretty good. In reality, you are choosing from a limited pool you didn't have a hand in creating and it brings up some interesting conundrums. I put myself in moms blogging in California. Pretty straight forward. Then I put myself in something called “Beyond Motherhood.” Seems to be the catch-all for those of us whose essence is not represented there. And the last one I am in is “Political.” I couldn't help but notice that this was one of the smallest categories. Much smaller, for example, than the listings for “Scrapbooking” (currently 234 blogs listed), “Fashion and Beauty” (451), and “Shopping and Reviews” (941). And I ask myself, how can this be?

Yes, I do mean, how can this be that “Scrapbooking” is not only a major interest of so many people, but that parents have TIME to scrapbook AND time to BLOG about it??!!?? But these are minor distractions when I think about the question at heart here: Are you trying to tell me that parenting isn't political? Cuz, um...

If you don't think that labor choices and food choices and school choice are political, I'm not sure what to tell you. If you don't think that raising children in a world of climate change and war isn't political, then you are a lot different than I am. I mean, when you get right down to it, for godssakes, if you've ever taken your infant outside with or without a hat and been accosted by strangers with vocal opinions, you've dabbled in the world of political parenting.

But I don't just write about parenting, eh? And if you don't think poetry is political, well, where do I start? Let's start with these words: Pablo Neruda.

Poetry not political? Tell that to the poets who've been exiled from their homelands because of their ideas. Tell the poets who've died for their words.

And check this awesome site out that I just discovered Split This Rock. A huge thanks to my colleague and friend Diana García for turning me on to this one. It is a group of activist poets trying to help other poets take their place in the movement for social justice. Diana was just part of a panel at the STR conference in DC this past March. The panel was called BIRTH AND THE POLITICS OF MOTHERING IN CONTEMPORARY POETRY. Sorry, did I just write that in all caps? Yeah, well, there's a bug crawled up my butt on this one and, trust me, be glad you're at a safe cyber distance from me.

If it's too much for you to name choices in how and why you mother, or when and what you write “political,” fine, be a language coward and see if I care. A rose by any other name, lovies. Just do me a favor and don't call it “scrapbooking.”

O-yeah

This past weekend, between the rainstorms and the bouts of illness, we managed a very cool, very fun O-Par-tay. We came together to continue the celebration. O-shaped pizza, O-shaped bread stuck with “O” candles, donuts, apple rings, and other O-licious snacks abounded. We played Six Degrees of Separation from Barack (in these parts lots of Leon Panetta references) and BUSH...GO! - the Bush Bingo game, where I called out Bush quotes instead of numbers to the amusement and horror of all participants. Our living room was strung with flags of various nations to symbolize our re-entry into the world community. Floating Obama heads greeted guests who donned various forms of Obama-wear.

While it all starts to sound a bit like idol worship, we were really going more for kitch. And, of course, joy – sheer joy.

And if I ever had any doubt whether Isaac will remember these days, it is drifting ever-so-constantly away. My evening culminated this way:

(post-toothbrushing) “Mama, know why I did extra spits? For Mr. Obama. Cauz when we brush our teeth real good hearts pop up on his shirt. Like it just goes through the computer and prints out. And the hearts say, 'We're really glad you're here. We're really excited you're president now!”